A Most Talented Traitor

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31440, 5 August 1967, Page 4

A Most Talented Traitor

An Agent In Place: the Wennerstrom Affair. By Thomas Whiteside. Heinemann. 150 pp.

It is not so long ago since the incredible doings of Colonel Wennerstrom, Swedish Air Force officer and diplomat, exploded upon the Western World, shattered its complacency, and outdid by far in espionage revealed anything E. Phillips Oppenheim had imagined in his heyday.

What made Wennerstrom’s exposure the more sensational was that he belonged to a

highly-regarded Swedish mili- . tary family, had been brought up in a tradition of loyalty, 1 was intelligent, competent as ; an officer, and in every way ; above suspicion both in his . own country and in others • where he was attached to the diplomatic corps. Yet one day in the early 1960 s his Swedish housekeeper. Mrs Rosen, began to notice things about his habits that his wife, family and friends had never questioned. She discovered sophisticated radio equipment in his home and photographic equipment for the transfer of documents to micro-film. Her suspicions were aroused and eventually she Informed the authorities. There were lengthy interrogations . . - and thus came to an end the double life of Colonel Stig Wennerstrom, once Swedish military attache in Moscow and later in Washington. In the early stages he was a double agent, supplying the United States with information he got from Russian sources, and the Russians with information from the Americans. But all told he gave the Russians far more than anyone else during the 15 years he was devoted to them alone. How much harm he did to the American defence system it is difficult to say, but it is certain he compromised the whole Swedish system. In this book Mr Whiteside sets down the whole story in detail from official sources and adds new material from

elsewhere. Even if in this reviewer’s opinion he has unnecessarily interrupted the flow by over-indulgence in what journalists call “sourcing,” he has still written a worthwhile account of a spy whose success, over such a long period in transmitting such a vast quantity of material must rank him among the world’s most talented traitors.

Mr Whiteside goes farther than the records of examining the psychological reasons for this urbane diplomat’s way of life. Wennerstrom himself says he came to belive that in supplying information to the Russians he was actually contributing to world peace, but this book delves into his mental make-up and the influence of his Russian “handler,” referred to never

by name but only as the General.

Mr Whiteside suggests that by means of flattery mixed with disguised threats the General so won the regard and devotion of Wennerstrom as to ween his loyalties from Sweden and the N.AT.O. nations and transfer them to Russia. Indeed, the General's personality was such that Wennerstrom admitted he confided all his personal problems in him and sought his advice. In other words, the General played cunningly on the strings of Wennerstrom’s personality and turned his original hatred of the Russians into sympathy and admiration for a nation surrounded by probing threats. Mr Whiteside’s assessment of the relationship between these two men could well be true.